Medal of Honor (2010) Part I

Back in summer of 2010 I had to seriously debate about which new game I wanted more. Call of Duty: Black Ops, or the new Medal of Honor game. I turned to my good friend, toodlekittens, and asked his opinion. He told me that if I was looking for another CoD game, I should just get Black Ops. If I wanted a difficult, tactical fps that boasts a more accurate physics engine, then I should consider MoH. I thought I had only one option, so I went with Blops because it was something I knew I’d be familiar and comfortable with. Plus the trailers looked badass. Luckily enough, I was able to pick up MoH on sale after Christmas as well.

Was it a good choice? Absolutely. I don’t regret purchasing it. It is definitely not the standard Call of Duty game, though. It was produced by Danger Close, and the setting is the war in the Middle East. The weirdest thing about this game is that the single player campaign runs off of the Unreal Engine 3, but the online multiplayer runs off of the Frostbite engine. I still am not entirely sure of what I should think of this. I like the overall feel of the campaign’s engine, but it can be lacking sometimes. I also like the feel of the multiplayer engine as well, but I will delve into that more later.

Overall, I really enjoyed the game. The campaign might have been a little on the short side, but it was still substantial enough to keep me focused and in the game. I did my first run through on Medium difficulty. For the some of the missions, I felt like I was on recruit difficulty on CoD. I would hate to see easy difficulty. I ran around with my pistol and knife for the majority of some missions (turns out they’re achievements, so I can’t complain) and had no problems. Then I got to some other missions. There is one mission where you have to pilot an attack helicopter. That was quite difficult to do. The game was not always clear on your objectives, but it was fairly straightforward otherwise.

When I first did a mission that had a sniper rifle, I was very disappointed after looking down the sights. There wasn’t much of a zoom, and it gave the impression of walleye. Which was a little disorienting. Also, being used to CoD, there was no idle sway. As it turns out, that wasn’t really sniping. That was just using a scoped battle rifle. In a later mission, you get to use a scoped Barrett .50 cal. For those of you who think that it wouldn’t be all that special never tried using it. This…this was sniping. The idle sway was ridiculous, and there was no way to steady it. You had to time it properly in order to get that kill, and you had to deal with wind (not a huge factor) and bullet flight paths. Want that head shot? Better aim up. But after getting used to it, getting kills was extremely satisfying. After completing that part of the mission, I was disappointed that there wasn’t more, and wanted to go back and do it over. Rest assured, you get to snipe more in other missions. But I feel that was probably the best part of the campaign.

Overall, I enjoyed the campaign. It was captivating and seemed…well, somewhat realistic.

Keep posted for a follow up, in which I dive into the multiplayer, and Tier One game modes.